“Plainfield Library Archivists Dig Up Personal Letter From John Quincy Adams”
From Mycentraljersey.com:
In case you were wondering, our sixth president really knew how to write a nice rejection letter.
Taking up precisely a full page with neat, handwritten script, John Quincy Adams politely and eloquently declined an invitation to attend a Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society event in the late 1830s, citing his flagging health during a sweltering heat wave. No one might have ever known it, if not for Plainfield Public Library archivist Jeff Wassen — who said he knew the letter was part of the library’s huge collection of historic archives, but forgot about it to some degree before recently rediscovering it.
“It’s in very good condition,” the library’s head archivist, Sarah Hull, explained, donning a pair of blue rubber gloves to handle the letter. “It looks brand new.”
Read the Complete Article (Includes Images of Letter)
See Also: Plainfield library now home to one of few remaining copies of oldest Bible printed in America (January 17, 2013)
Filed under: Archives and Special Collections, Libraries, News, Public Libraries

About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.